14 NOVEMBER 15, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Laetly spins scarves in neighborhood knit shop
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@GMAIL.COM
With fi ne Italian wool and a
little Ridgewood resourcefulness,
Laetly began manufacturing
and selling their unique line
of scarves priced at a competitive $100
or less in September.
Since then, the small brand has been
picking up momentum through word
of mouth and seeks to be the antidote
to the run-of-the-mill scarves one is
likely to fi nd for an equally low price
on marketplaces such as Amazon, but
with much higher quality.
Joe Losardo, from the Bronx, started
the venture with two other partners
he has worked with the marketing
industry, Vanessa Bailey from the
Bay area and Michael Castellano from
Middle Village.
“We think scarves are kind of this
fun accessory, the fun exclamation
point to your winter outfi t,” Losardo
said. “So we really wanted to infuse
some fun and bold designs into our
scarves ... Our scarves are meant to be
unisex. We really wanted to provide
this universal comfort in how they
feel but then allow people to interpret
them into their own clothes and styles.”
The scarves have a variety of elaborate
designs that are soft to the touch,
according to Losardo, and some items
feature fi gures of skeleton keys, octopi
and another with the phrase “phone,
keys, wallet,” taken from the Comedy
Central show “Broad City.”
The wool comes from Merino, Italy,
famous for producing soft wool, and
Laetly has sourced the yarn specifi -
cally from a century-old mill, Losardo
said.
“That kind of marries old-world
craft smanship with sustainable, current
manufacturing of the garment,”
Losardo said. “We have the yarn
sent to Ridgewood where we really
wanted our scarves to be made in
New York.”
Losardo views the small company’s
involvement with Simply Knitting
Mills at 683 Woodward Ave. as more
of a collaboration and with the shop
being located near where the three
business partners live, they can have
a hands-on relationship.
The scarves are available on laetly.
com.
Photo courtesy of Laetly
Street vendors in Queens and rest of city will
receive health grades just like restaurants
BY BILL PARRY
BPARRY@CNGLOCAL.COM
Mobile food vendors will soon
have letter grades just like
brick-and-mortar restaurants
across the fi ve boroughs, the
city’s Health Department announced
last week.
The new program, launching next
month, will introduce a scoring system
where the food trucks and carts
receive points for violations at their
food safety inspections, and their
score will correspond to an “A,” “B”
or “C” grade, which will be posted on
the unit.
The new letter grading program
will apply to all 5,500 food carts and
trucks authorized to operate in New
York City and is required under last
year’s Local Law 108.
“I cannot imagine someone not
looking for a restaurant’s letter grade
from our city’s Health Department
before deciding whether or not to
patronize a restaurant,” said Councilwoman
Karen Koslowitz, the Forest
Hills lawmaker who sponsored the
legislation. “The letter grade has
become absolutely essential as it
relates to restaurants. Yet, every
day, countless numbers of people
in New York purchase food from a
street vendor without knowing to a
general degree the cart’s compliance
with the NYC Health Code. I believe
that the customers who buy food
from a street vendor deserve to have
the same ability to make an informed
decision as do patrons of restaurants.”
The Street Vendor Project represents
nearly 2,000 vendor members
at the Urban Justice Center advocating
for their rights in the face of New
York’s aggressive “quality-of-life”
crackdowns as well as those that have
been denied access to vending licenses.
“The Street Vendor Project has
supported the idea of providing letter
grades for mobile food vendors for
some time now,” SVP Legal Director
Matthew Shapiro said. “Since vendors
are already following the same health
code as restaurants they should get the
benefi t of displaying an ‘A’ grade.”
The organization does have a problem
with one part of Local Law 108.
In order to locate carts and trucks
when they are due for inspection,
the Health Department will attach a
location-sharing device on every unit.
Many of the street vendors, of which
nearly 85 percent are immigrants, fear
the GPS systems fearing information
would be shared with ICE agents.
“We are still concerned about the
potential consequences of GPS tracking
as the vast majority of vendors
are immigrants,” Shapiro said. “It is
already precarious for these vendors
to be working in public space and
having another means of locating
them could pose additional dangers
for their immigration status.”
The city claims the data will only be
accessible to Health Department staff
or agents of the Department, and they
will also be protected from disclosure
in all instances except where ordered
by the court.
File photo
The city's Health Department expands its restaurant letter grading program
to food carts and trucks.
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